


It's the end of the world (as they know it)

by msmorland



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 09:58:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19170976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmorland/pseuds/msmorland
Summary: The first surprise is that Aziraphale wakes up. Actually, he supposes, working backwards, the first surprise was that he fell asleep at all. He knows Crowley sleeps—Crowley likes to luxuriate in all those little human indulgences—but sleep has never had much appeal for Aziraphale. There is still, six thousand years on, too much of the world he wants to be awake for.





	It's the end of the world (as they know it)

**Author's Note:**

> Good Omens was one of my first fandoms, but I've never written for it before. (Thanks to the show for reawakening my love for these characters and their relationship.) This takes place after the events of the book/show and is vaguely canon compliant, but doesn't directly reference much from either version.

The first surprise is that Aziraphale wakes up. Actually, he supposes, working backwards, the first surprise was that he fell asleep at all. He knows Crowley sleeps—Crowley likes to luxuriate in all those little human indulgences—but sleep has never had much appeal for Aziraphale. There is still, six thousand years on, too much of the world he wants to be awake for.

Upstairs sees the world as a weapon, or maybe a battleground, in the battle with Downstairs. The contents of said battleground have always been immaterial to Gabriel and co., and no number of encounters with rare books or evenings at the opera or fine meals at the Ritz would ever persuade them otherwise.

But Aziraphale was easily persuaded all those years back in the garden that there was something here worth caring for, and he has loved the world ever since. Loved his life in the world. Loved—well. Loved all the things that have become familiar to him over his years in that world, including a certain demon counterpart. 

Aziraphale has known he loved Crowley since the incident with the bombs and the books in 1941. But the idea that Crowley might feel something akin to love in return is utterly new to Aziraphale, and utterly confounding. So confounding that Aziraphale spent half the night tossing and turning at the thought of it—and then he had, apparently, _fallen asleep_.

How utterly human of him.

Humans, Aziraphale has ascertained over the centuries, look on mornings as something special. They speak of tomorrow-is-another-day and fresh starts and looking at things in a new light. Aziraphale, who has been around humans long enough to know just how consistent they are at the core, to be able to speak of human nature with true longitudinal awareness, has always privately thought that this morning-oriented optimism might be all so much bunk. 

But then Aziraphale wakes up, a few mornings after the missed Apocalypse, and thinks of Crowley. Of himself and Crowley. Of how terrified Crowley had seemed at the thought of losing Aziraphale, more than he would be if Aziraphale were merely his longest-running acquaintance on this planet, if their connection were still driven by circumstance more than by choice.

 _Today is another day_ , Aziraphale thinks. And he finds himself in the mood, indeed, for a fresh start.

* * *

He goes to Crowley’s flat, because that bit seems important. Crowley, Aziraphale knows, still suspects that the angel looks down on him, the fallen demon to Aziraphale’s ethereal being. Aziraphale has never known how to demonstrate definitively otherwise, to erase the doubt he knows lingers somewhere in the back of Crowley’s mind. The best he can come up with is going to Crowley. Offering himself.

“Angel,” Crowley growls through the intercom when Aziraphale presses the buzzer. (He’s decided it’s best to be polite, even if he does have the ability to unlock the lock himself.) “It’s far too early. We’ve already saved the world. What on Earth is there to get up for?”

“It’s a new day, my dear boy,” Aziraphale says, beaming at the intercom. 

He thinks he sees it smolder, just a little, in response, but the door does buzz, and Aziraphale goes in. He chooses to take it as encouragement that Crowley wants to see him enough to let him in despite the grumbling.

When he gets upstairs, Crowley’s door is unlocked and the demon himself is lounging on the sofa, sunglasses on. “It can’t possibly be lunchtime already, can it?” he says. 

He is exactly himself—lean, lazy lines—but Aziraphale sees something else in it. There’s a tightness to the way Crowley holds himself. The demon is nervous of him.

“It’s not lunchtime,” Aziraphale agrees. “Though I do hope you’ll join me for lunch later.”

“Well, then?” Crowley says. “What is it?”

And Aziraphale stops, struck by the weight of what he’s about to do. They’ve maintained this equilibrium for millennia, and what the angel says next will inevitably shift it, one way or the other.

Aziraphale has always known the human world would change around him, but they, he and Crowley—they are not supposed to change. And yet they have, or at least Aziraphale has, so gradually he didn’t notice until a bomb nearly fell on him.

How utterly human of him.

“Angel?” Crowley says. He sits up. “Is everything all right?”

“Quite,” Aziraphale says, though his voice isn’t really all there. 

He steps forward and reaches out, presses the tips of his fingers to the frames of Crowley’s sunglasses and pushes them up to the top of the demon’s head.

_There._

Crowley’s eyes contain whole worlds. Aziraphale has always liked that about them. Aziraphale looks into them now, thinks about the world they’ve saved and all the things they have yet to discover in it, even after six thousand years. Of how it might feel to discover those things with Crowley.

He leans forward, into the demon’s space, his intent clear.

Crowley has always been the one of them who teases, normally—but then they've always had more in common than either side wanted to admit, haven't they?

“Crowley, my dear,” Aziraphale says, with a smile he will willingly admit is both teasing and fond. "Can I tempt you?”

“Eternally,” Crowley says.

They close the gap together.


End file.
